New Teardown Of Nintendo Switch Shows What It Could Be Capable Of

To the brave men and women who shelled out $300 just to take a Nintendo Switch apart for viewers to see inside, we salute you. It takes a lot of technical prowess, cash and sheer disregard for warranties to want to take new technology and pry it open for the glory of showing people what something’s technological guts look like. And there’s been no shortage of people doing so with the Nintendo Switch over the past few week. But one video, in particular, shows us exactly how capable the Switch could have been at launch.

Ben Heck tore one open for his show last week and gave the system one of the best examination videos you could possibly see. About eight minutes in, you get one of the biggest reveals of how the system was put together, and that’s a Toshiba part that is used for Flash memory… but it isn’t a permanent piece. While it may be connected, it’s essentially a floating piece of hardware that’s been added to the system, which means it was designed to be easily replaceable. Why is that significant? It means that the 32gb memory the system comes with is upgradable, and it’s possible that Nintendo has plans in the works to release systems that contain more memory.

credit//IFixIt

The current going rate for a 1TB SD card is around $100. So in theory, having a Nintendo Switch cost $400 was probably an option at the start, but Nintendo probably opted for it to be cheaper and went with minimal memory to get it there. But don’t be shocked if you see a Switch come out soon that contains various amounts of memory for all your gaming needs.

Gavin has been a lifelong geek who can chat with you about comics, television, video games, and even pro wrestling. He can also teach you how to play Star Trek chess, be your Mercy on Overwatch, recommend random cool music, and goes rogue in D&D. He also enjoys standup comedy, Let's Play videos and trying new games, along with hundreds of other geeky things that can't be covered in a single paragraph. Follow @TheGavinSheehan on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vero, for random pictures and musings.